TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, vol.365, no.2, pp.861-883, 2013 (SCI-Expanded)
We develop a new framework which resolves the homotopy periods problem. We start with integer-valued homotopy periods defined explicitly from the classic bar construction. We then work rationally, where we use the Lie coalgebraic bar construction to get a sharp model for Hom(pi*X,Q) for simply connected X. We establish geometric interpretations of these homotopy periods, to go along with the good formal properties coming from the Koszul-Moore duality framework. We give calculations, applications, and relationships with the numerous previous approaches.